The measurement of the concentration of various blood constituents finds application in a wide variety of procedures for the diagnosis and treatment of conditions and disease in human subjects. One important application is in the measurement of blood glucose. Specifically, the concentration of blood glucose should be monitored on a periodic basis in persons suffering from diabetes, and with respect to insulin-dependent or Type I diabetes, it is often necessary or desirable to monitor blood glucose several times a day. Further, the measurement of blood cholesterol concentrations provides important information in the treatment or prevention of persons suffering from coronary artery disease, and the measurement of other organic blood analytes, such as bilirubin and alcohol, is important in various diagnostic contexts.
The most accurate and widely practiced method of obtaining blood analyte concentrations involves the extraction of blood from a patient, which blood is then analyzed, either in a laboratory using highly accurate and sensitive assay techniques, or by the use less accurate self-testing methods. In particular, traditional blood glucose monitoring methods require the diabetic to draw a blood sample (e.g., by a finger-tip lance) for each test and to read the glucose level using a glucometer (a spectrophotometer that reads glucose concentrations) or a calorimetric calibration method. Such invasive blood extractions create a painful and tedious burden to the diabetic and expose the diabetic to the possibility of infection, particularly in light of the frequency of testing which is necessary. These considerations can lead to an abatement of the monitoring process by the diabetic.
Accordingly, there is a recognized need in the art for a simple and accurate method and device for noninvasively measuring blood analyte concentration, particularly in the context of blood glucose monitoring by diabetics. One approach to the problem entails the use of traditional methods of near infrared (near-IR) analysis, wherein the measurement of absorbance at one or more specific wavelengths is used to extract analyte-specific information from a given sample.
Near-IR absorbance spectra of liquid samples contain a large amount of information about the various organic constituents of the sample. Specifically, the vibrational, rotational and stretching energy associated with organic molecular structures (e.g., carbon-carbon, carbon-hydrogen, carbon-nitrogen and nitrogen-hydrogen chemical bonds) produces perturbations in the near-IR region which can be detected and related to the concentration of various organic constituents present in the sample. However, in complex sample matrices, near-IR spectra also contain an appreciable amount of interferences, due in part to similarities of structure amongst analytes, relative levels of analyte concentration, interfering relationships between analytes and the magnitude of electronic and chemical "noise" inherent in a particular system. Such interferences reduce the efficiency and precision of measurements obtained using near-IR spectrometry to determine the concentration of liquid sample analytes. However, a number of near-IR devices and methods have been described to provide noninvasive blood analyte determinations.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,360,004 to Purdy et al. describes a method and apparatus for the determination of blood analyte concentrations, wherein a body portion is irradiated with radiation containing two or more distinct bands of continuous-wavelength incident radiation. Purdy et al. emphasize filtration techniques to specifically block radiation at the two peaks in the NIR absorption spectrum for water, occurring at about 1440 and 1935 nm. Such selective blocking is carried out in order to avoid a heating effect that may be due to the absorption of radiation by water in the body part being irradiated.
By contrast, U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,152 to Yang et al. describes noninvasive devices and techniques for measuring blood glucose concentration using only the portion of the IR spectrum which contains the NIR water absorption peaks (e.g., the "water transmission window," which includes those wavelengths between 1300 and 1900 nm). Optically controlled light is directed to a tissue source and then collected by an integrating sphere. The collected light is analyzed and blood glucose concentration calculated using a stored reference calibration curve.
Devices have also been described for use in determination of analyte concentrations in complex samples.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,602 to Richardson et al. describes methods for analyzing aqueous systems to detect multiple active or inactive water treating components. The methods involve determination of the absorbance or emission spectrum of the components over the range of 200 to 2500 nm, and application of chemometrics algorithms to extract segments of the spectral data obtained to quantify multiple performance indicators.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,252,829 to Nygaard et al. describes a method and apparatus for measuring the concentration of urea in a milk sample using an infrared attenuation measuring technique. Multivariate techniques are carried out to determine spectral contributions of known components using partial least squares algorithms, principal component regression, multiple linear regression or artificial neural network learning. Calibration is carried out by accounting for the component contributions that block the analyte signal of interest. Thus, Nygaard et al. describe a technique of measuring multiple analyte infrared attenuations and compensating for the influence of background analytes to obtain a more accurate measurement.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,306,152 to Ross et al. describes an optical fluid analyzer designed to minimize the effect of background absorption (i.e., the overall or base level optical absorption of the fluid sample) on the accuracy of measurement in a turbid sample or in a liquid sample which is otherwise difficult to analyze. The apparatus measures an optical signal at the characteristic optical absorption of a sample component of interest and another signal at a wavelength selected to approximate background absorption, and then subtracts to reduce the background component of the analyte-dependent signal.
The accuracy of information obtained using the above-described methods and devices is limited by the spectral interference caused by background, i.e., non-analyte, sample constituents that also have absorption spectra in the near-IR range. Appreciable levels of background noise represent an inherent system limitation, particularly when very little analyte is present. In light of this limitation, attempts have been made to improve signal-to-noise ratios, e.g., by avoiding water absorption peaks to enable the use of increased radiation intensity, by reducing the amount of spectral information to be analyzed, or by using subtraction or compensation techniques based on an approximation of background absorption. Although such techniques have provided some improvement, there remains a need to provide a method and apparatus capable of rendering a more precise determination of the concentration of analytes in a liquid matrix, particularly in the context of blood glucose monitoring.